Microsoft Office Word 2003 Inside Out (Bpg-Inside Out)

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When you create a drawing using objects, you'll find that you frequently need to adjust existing objects in a number of ways. Because drawn pictures are made of lines and shapes, you can reshape, group and ungroup, reorder, and change the color of one or all parts of a picture. This part of the chapter describes the numerous ways you can work with existing objects when you create drawings in Word.

Modifying Objects

Rarely will you instantly create a shape in the exact position and size required by your drawing. Therefore, you need to become proficient at resizing, reshaping, rotating, and flipping objects before you can successfully create drawings in Word.

Resizing Objects

To resize an object, select the object, and then drag the object's selection handles. You can resize a single shape, a group of selected shapes, or the entire drawing canvas. When you resize drawing objects, Word redraws the lines and shapes to meet the newly designated dimensions.

Reshaping Objects

Many AutoShapes display a yellow diamond-shaped adjustment handle when you select them. This adjustment handle enables you to change the most prominent feature of a shape. For example, you can change the length and width of a star's points by dragging the star's adjustment handle. Figure 12-24 shows a star shape that has been modified using this technique.

Figure 12-24: These shapes were created from the same AutoShape (Sun in the Basic Shapes menu); each has been modified by dragging its yellow diamond-shaped adjustment handle.

Rotating Objects

In addition to resizing and reshaping objects, you can rotate them. To do so, use either of the following methods:

Remember, if your object contains a fill effect and you want the fill to rotate with the object, you must make sure that the Rotate Fill Effect With Shape check box is selected in the Fill Effects dialog box.

Tip 

To restrict the rotation of objects to 15-degree angles, press Shift while you drag the rotation handle.

Flipping Objects

Flipping an object literally means to flip an object over. (It might help to visualize flipping pancakes when using this feature.) You can flip an object horizontally or vertically. To flip an object, select the object, click Draw on the Drawing toolbar, choose Rotate Or Flip from the menu, and then choose Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical. Figure 12-25 shows the results of flipping an object horizontally and vertically.

Figure 12-25: To create this figure, three identical lightning bolts were drawn and then the lightning bolt in the center was flipped horizontally while the lightning bolt on the right was flipped vertically.

Tip 

You can flip AutoShapes, pictures, clip art, and WordArt objects.

Selecting Multiple Drawing Elements at One Time

Sometimes you might want to select multiple objects at one time because you want to perform one of the following tasks:

To select multiple objects, press Shift or Ctrl, and then click each object you want to include. Alternatively, you can click in the drawing canvas, click the Select Multiple Objects button on the Drawing toolbar in the Select Multiple Objects dialog box, click the check boxes that appear next to the names of the objects that you want to select, and then click OK. You can tell which objects have been selected because they now have selection handles. After a group of objects is selected, you can right-click to apply shortcut menu options, click Drawing toolbar buttons to apply formatting, press Delete or Backspace to delete the objects, or drag the selected items to move them as a group.

Repositioning and Aligning Drawing Objects with Precision

As an experienced Word user, you know that you can reposition drawing objects by clicking and dragging them. Moving objects this way to create drawings is especially effective when you use Word's drawing canvas. Sometimes, however, you might want to position objects with more precision. You can control how objects are positioned by using a drawing grid, nudging objects into place, and using the aligning and distributing options provided on the Drawing toolbar, as described here:

Grouping and Ungrouping Objects

You can group objects to ensure that certain objects stay positioned together no matter what. Grouping comes in handy when you want to copy or move drawings as well as ensure that layered objects don't inadvertently become incorrectly layered (for more about layering, see "Controlling Object Layering," next). For example, if you've overlaid a text box on an AutoShape, you might want to group the two objects so that you won't have to reposition the text box within the shape every time you move the shape. In addition, you won't have to worry about the text box being accidentally layered beneath the object, which would hide the text. You can ungroup grouped items at any time, which enables you to edit any part of a grouped object whenever necessary.

To group objects, position your objects, select the objects you want to group (by pressing Shift and clicking each object you want to include or by dragging your cursor to select the objects), click Draw on the Drawing toolbar, and then choose Group from the menu. Alternatively, select the objects you want to group, right-click, choose Grouping from the shortcut menu, and then choose Group.

To ungroup objects, click the group to select it, click Draw on the Drawing toolbar, and then choose Ungroup. Alternatively, right-click the group, choose Grouping from the shortcut menu, and then choose Ungroup.

Tip 

Regrouping your objects  If you ungroup a group to make a minor change—maybe you want to resize an object in the group, for example—you can easily regroup the objects after you make your changes. To do so, select any object that was part of the group, click Draw on the Drawing toolbar, and choose Regroup from the menu, or right-click the object, choose Grouping from the shortcut menu, and then choose Regroup.

Controlling Object Layering

When you create a drawing that contains many objects, you'll need to control which objects are layered in front of and behind other objects. Paying attention to how objects are layered can save you from inadvertently obscuring parts of your drawings that should be visible. The order in which objects are stacked is sometimes referred to as the z-order, based on standard coordinate references, in which x refers to horizontal positioning, y refers to vertical positioning, and z refers to depth positioning. To control the z-order of objects in your drawing, select an object, click Draw on the Drawing toolbar, and choose Order from the menu (or right-click an object and choose Order from the shortcut menu) to access the layering options, as shown in Figure 12-29. You can position an object in front of all layers, in back of all layers, in front of the next layer, or in back of the preceding layer. In addition, you can specify drawing canvases to be placed in front of or behind text if your drawing is a floating object or is a drawing that's not bounded by the drawing canvas.

Figure 12-29: Layering objects helps you control which objects appear in the foreground of your drawing and which appear in the background.

Tip 

If you're having trouble selecting an object (perhaps it's buried under other objects), you can press Tab repeatedly to move your selection focus from one object to the next.


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